Lord of the Isles

Another free ebook from Tor finished. This one is the first in one of those high-fantasy epic series that never seem to finish, just spawn off trilogies and trilogies of sequels. "Lord of the Isles" by David Drake reads a bit like someone wrote down their Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It is episodic, divided into Books with no discernible scheme, because fantasy epics have to be partitioned into roman-numeralled books. The characters are all highly competent, powerful people that do the Right Thing because they were all brought up as Simple Country Folk and had no inkling of their Destiny.

Despite the clichés the book is well-written, entertaining enough to keep me reading to the end. It is the novel equivalent of Torchwood: you know it's crap, but you keep watching because it's easy and there's always the chance of it having a couple of good bits in it. I don't think I'll bother looking for the rest of the series, but at least it didn't annoy the crap out of me like Mercedes Lackey's "Outstretched Shadow".